


A Forest in Winter

by theheadgirl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A little bit of angst, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Smut, F/F, Gentle Kissing, Oral Sex, Post-Battle of Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-08-30 03:20:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16756675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theheadgirl/pseuds/theheadgirl
Summary: The first December after the Battle of Hogwarts, Pomona is having a hard time remembering how to properly celebrate Christmas. But a mysterious gift gives her new reasons - and people - to celebrate.





	A Forest in Winter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OllieMaye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OllieMaye/gifts).



Although the walls had been repaired and the blood scrubbed off the floor, Pomona still felt it when she walked through the halls. Her brain just overlaid it without her input. _Remember when that window was shattered? Remember who died in this spot? Remember when you thought_ you'd _die right here? Remember? Remember?_

Pomona thought of herself as tough, but it was hard to be tough when the attack was coming from behind your eyes. She couldn't set a Venomous Tentacula against her own brain, tempting as it was to consider.

“Pomona?”

She jumped at the hand on her shoulder, the greenery she'd been holding cascading out of her arms with a crash. Shaky, she started gathering it up, only glancing back at who'd startled her a moment later.

Rolanda stepped back, then moved in to help her pick up the boughs of holly.

“I didn't mean to startle you. You'd been staring at nothing - I wanted to be sure you were okay.”

“I'm fine.” Pomona took the last armful of greenery from Rolanda and smiled in thanks. “It's…”

“Yes?” Rolanda prompted, when Pomona didn't seem inclined to finish her thought.

“Oh - it's just that, decorating for Christmas, it seems … I don't know.”

“Unimportant?”

“Maybe that's it. It feels like a thing I used to do, and … nothing is the same now, so why is this?”

“In the grand scheme of things, I guess it is unimportant,” Rolanda mused. “I'm not really a judge of aesthetics, I'll admit, but I think when you've got these up, and Filius has added all of those baubles, it's going to look very pretty.” She placed a hand, briefly, on Pomona's back. “It'll do the children a lot of good to see it look so nice.”

Pomona tried to see it from Rolanda's point of view. She saw the greenery along the walls, and the ornaments that Filius would hang, and the floating candles. She was right: it would look pretty. The children would like it, and she would, too.

“You're right, Rolanda,” she said. “Thank you.”

“I'm always here to help,” Rolanda replied. She smiled and continued down the hallway, whistling [ a song ](https://youtu.be/xyjHnt7wj3Y?t=61) Pomona didn't recognize, but it felt very festive.

Pomona couldn't help but smile as well, and she began levitating the greenery into place.

  
Rolanda had been right. Once the greenery was hung and Filius had festooned them with the decorations, candles, and even a few live fairies, the castle felt like an entirely different place. Pomona couldn't forget (about a lot of things, it seemed) but it looked and smelled so lovely that she could set it aside for a moment and soak it in.

Christmas had always been her favorite time of year. When she had been little, it had been the presents, of course, but as she had grown older, she grew to love the beauty of the season, the sparkling decorations, and the feeling of goodwill.

Last Christmas had barely been a Christmas. No decorations under the new regime - no one had wanted to run the risk that some house-elf heads might be strung up along with the ornaments on the tree. There had been some gift exchanging between the teachers, but Christmas itself had been just like any other day. Nothing special, nothing joyous. Just another day of fear, another day of waiting, another day drawing from an increasingly dwindling reservoir of hope.

Pomona forced herself out of it, back into the corridor of Hogwarts, surrounded by greenery that seemed to blur when she looked at it now. She wiped her eyes as discreetly as she could and continued on her way to her office.

Peacetime seemed to be a mixed blessing, she thought, green sprigs and gold balls blending together into a festive blur as she hurried past them. On the one hand, it was lovely to not have to constantly be wary of attack, to be able to think of things aside from if she'd make it through the day.

On the other hand, it did give her quite a lot of time to think about things she'd rather not. She had done very well in pushing them aside for quite a while now and she didn't appreciate them surfacing now. Or ever, frankly.

“ _Alohomora_.” She tapped the doorknob of her office with her wand and opened the door, a quick wave of the wand lighting the candles in her office. Suddenly, she stopped short, a sudden thrill of shock rooting her to the spot.

A present sat on her desk. It was small, perhaps only six inches around, and beautifully wrapped in red paper, a white bow with tiny silver bells tied around it.

Before she knew it, she had her wand out. “ _Hominem Revelio_.” Nothing, meaning she was the only person in the suite of rooms.

It wasn't as though her office security was  _that_ tough. Pomona rarely bothered with more than a _Colloportus_ charm on the main door, which could be reversed with a regular Unlocking Charm. Her apartment, behind the office, she kept secure with significantly more complex charms, since she kept her valuables in them. She hurried over to the door and checked - untouched since she had set them in the morning. It seemed unlikely that there would be any further surprises, then.

Going back to the desk, Pomona waved her wand over the package, murmuring the incantation for Scarpin's Revelaspell. The package, instead of lighting up red with any magic, simply lay inert.

That meant that either the mysterious giver had charmed it against Scarpin's, which was a complicated set of charms but not impossible… or Pomona was being ridiculously paranoid and it was just a gift.

She picked it up, shifting through the ribbon to see if she could find a tag. Spotting one, she seized it eagerly - only to discover that it only had her name on it, and nothing on the reverse.

Taking the gift, she sat in her chair behind the desk and began untying the ribbon, the tiny bells jingling softly with each movement. The paper came next, revealing a small box. Heart beating fast, Pomona opened the box and winced back, half-expecting it to explode in her hands.

Instead, it just sat there, and she released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

She looked inside. Nestled in white tissue paper was a nutcracker. Its wooden torso was painted red, with white legs and a tall black hat. Down its chest was a long white beard, clearly delineating the moveable area. The detailing was beautiful: gold swirls on the chest and neat black stripes along the trousers, and a perfectly painted jewel and feather on the black hat. Carefully, she lifted it out of the box, turning it over to see if there were any more hints about the identity of the sender. It remained silent and still - by all appearances, a perfectly normal Muggle nutcracker soldier.

She looked back in the box and spotted a scrap of paper tucked in among the tissue paper.

 _My dear Pomona_ , it began,

 _I'm sure this is a bit Gryffindor for your tastes_ (Pomona smiled) _, but I'm afraid I couldn't find a nutcracker that had just the right amount of yellow and black. You have seemed so sad lately, and I hope a new friend will help you smile again._

_I know it's bold, but please meet me on the Quidditch pitch Friday evening at six. I hope to see you there._

_With Christmas cheer,_

_R._

Pomona stared at the note in unseeing disbelief. It seemed - well, to part of her, it seemed wonderful, but to another part of her, it seemed inappropriate. Wrong. She was still grieving; they all were. It felt like a betrayal to the memory of everyone who had died to pursue what seemed to be a clearly romantic evening with this ‘R.’

‘R.’ Who could ‘R’ be, anyway? It had to be another staff member, since an unfamiliar person stalking the halls would have set the paintings off, and she would have heard about it.  

She mentally listed the rest of the staff: Minerva, Filius, Aurora, Horace, Poppy … Rubeus? She looked at the note again, thinking about Hagrid, and Hagrid's handwriting. That conclusion she could safely dismiss out of hand. This handwriting was much too precise and neat to belong to Rubeus Hagrid.

Which left Rolanda. Rolanda Hooch.

Pomona's mind flashed back to the other day, Rolanda's hand on her back, the kind smile she'd bestowed.

Her heart leapt in spite of her mind, eager to have something positive to cling to rather than the misery it had worn like a shroud for what felt like ages. She read and reread the note, wondering if she should send a response. It didn't ask for one, and she hadn't signed her full name, so perhaps there was supposed to be some kind of mystery.

Well, fine. Let her have her mystery. Pomona had her own - what sort of surprise could Rolanda have planned for a Friday evening on the Quidditch pitch?

 

She saw Rolanda the next morning at breakfast, and the other woman seemed just the same as always, lifting a hand in greeting as she took a sip of her tea.

“Good morning, Pomona,” she said. Her golden eyes crinkled slightly at the corners as she smiled. “I see you got your greenery up. It is all very pretty, isn't it?”

“It is,” Pomona agreed. She hesitated, balancing on the cusp of asking, then pivoted before the words could leave her mouth. “I thought Filius did good work as well. He has a fine eye for it.”

Rolanda’s mouth twitched, as though she knew precisely what Pomona decided not to say. “He does. I don't doubt the students are feeling better for it, too.”

Pomona looked out over the Great Hall, taking in the students as they prepared for the day. Even without the festive Christmas decorations, the difference between the students at the beginning of the year and now was remarkable. Pomona remembered scared clusters huddled together at each table, wincing and going silent every time a teacher passed by, how they had only spent as much time as necessary in the Great Hall to eat before hurrying to their dorms like scared rabbits bolting back to their burrows.

Three months on, it still wasn't like it used to be. Some of the students still startled, and more than one student had had a complete breakdown in class after a wrong answer or a small infraction of the rules, dreading what would happen next. It was better, though. The kids had started talking to each other across the House tables, and it seemed like every day a few more trickled into the Great Hall to study during their free periods. This morning, Pomona watched as a Ravenclaw poured herself some tea, looked around at the decorations, and smiled.

Pomona looked back at Rolanda, who didn't bother to hide that she had been watching the other woman.

“Tea?” Rolanda offered, and Pomona nodded, holding out her cup.

“Thank you.”

 

Time, as it tended to do when one is very eagerly awaiting something, dragged on. Pomona had received the note Wednesday night and would be meeting Rolanda on Friday evening, and all of Thursday and most of Friday seemed to take a week to pass. Each of her classes, normally a brisk and enjoyable hour each, had somehow ballooned to at least three - no matter what the clock on the wall may have claimed.

Finally, after what felt like six months, it was ten till six on Friday evening, just the time for Pomona to finish getting ready and walk to the Quidditch pitch.

The day-to-day of her job required clothes that were easy to clean and comfortable enough to be in all day, and the opportunities to dress up beyond a clean robe were few and far between. Even so, she wasn't sure _how_ to dress for this evening - the note hadn't stated a dress code, or much beside a time and a place.

Pomona looked in the mirror one more time and decided, well, that's as good as it gets. She had tamed her curls enough to pull back into a serviceable bun, and she'd added a touch of color to her cheeks and lips. She'd opted for a dark green cloak - warm enough for a Scottish night in December, but still a nice color - over a dark blue plaid dress. Of course, she still wore her favorite brown boots. If the outing involved walking, she wanted to be comfortable.

She paused at the door to her office, her stomach suddenly unsettled by a combination of nerves and anxiety. She shouldn't be doing this, not so soon - surely it wasn't right, it wasn't appropriate; there were more important things to focus on right now.

Pomona took those thoughts into her figurative hands and imagined removing them from her head, tossing them into the garbage. Appropriate or not, it was happening, and she wouldn't stand Rolanda up for the sake of what someone _might_ think.

Inhaling deeply, Pomona strode out of her office and down the hall, making her way out of the castle proper and down to the Quidditch pitch. The snow crunched under her feet, making a quiet approach impossible.

Rolanda waited for her at the edge of the pitch, and she smiled as she saw Pomona approaching.

“You came,” she said.

“You invited me,” Pomona replied, suddenly unable to think of anything cleverer.

Rolanda looked _beautiful._ Her features, already striking enough on their own, were carefully and expertly highlighted with eyeliner and a touch of lip color. She wore a dark red cloak over a perfectly tailored men's suit, though - and this made Pomona's mouth suddenly go very dry - the white shirt seemed to be unbuttoned very nearly halfway down. There was quite a lot of skin revealed between the two edges of the shirt.

Pomona forced herself to look back up. Rolanda's lips had lifted into a small, pleased smile.

“You look lovely. Here - this is for you.” She held something out. Carefully, Pomona lifted it from her hands and realized what it was: a snowflake, caught in a tiny globe filled with swirling, translucent colors. A gold chain trailed from the top of it.

“Rolanda, this is beautiful,” Pomona said, unable to believe the delicacy and beauty of it. “I'm sorry, I didn't bring anything for you.”

Rolanda smiled. “I didn't expect you to. Are you up for a little walk?”

“That sounds lovely.” Rolanda gestured for her to follow, and although it seemed Pomona took two steps for each one of Rolanda's, it wasn't hard to keep up.

“You didn't seem surprised it was me,” Rolanda said after a bit of walking. They had stepped away from the Quidditch pitch by now and were nearing Hagrid's hut on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

“You signed the note,” Pomona replied. “I thought it had to be you or Rubeus, and his handwriting doesn't look like yours.”

“Well reasoned,” Rolanda said. “I wasn't sure if it was the right idea, signing it, but I wanted you to know it was from a friend.”

“Thank you for the nutcracker, as well,” Pomona said. “He's lovely. I think I'm going to call him Julius.”

“A perfect name for a fierce warrior.” Rolanda stopped at the edge of the Forbidden Forest and held out a hand for Pomona to stop as well. She did, unsure of their next step. “Quiet, now. Cast a Cushioning Charm on your feet. We must be silent, or we'll scare them off.”

“Scare whom off?” Pomona asked, but Rolanda just put a finger to her lips and gestured to Pomona's feet. Doing as she'd suggested, Pomona cast a Cushioning charm along her feet. She took a few test steps, and her feet were silent against the snow. Pomona looked up and Rolanda gave her an approving nod, then motioned for her to follow.

“Quiet, now,” Rolanda repeated in a whisper, then started into the forest. Pomona followed, picking their way silently through the forest until they stopped at the edge of a clearing. A circle of stones stood clearly delineated in the snow.

“A fairy circle?” Pomona whispered to Rolanda. Rolanda nodded.

“Rubeus told me they would be here.”

Pomona had known that the Forest was home to all sorts of magical creatures, but she'd always thought any sort of fairy spotting had to be misidentified pixies.

“There, look!”

Pomona followed the line of Rolanda's finger and gasped softly.

Bursting out of the fairy circle were easily hundreds of fairies, their wings filling the clearing with the sound of tiny silver bells. To the last, they all wore white, edged with silver and iridescence, and as they flew up, snowflakes fell behind them, coating the ground.

Finally, it seemed the fairy circle had let the last of its inhabitants escape, and the fairies themselves formed a line around the perimeter of the clearing. The sound of so many wings, so many bells, should have been discordant, but it was beautiful.

One last fairy flew from the circle. Although she was no bigger than the others, there was an immediate shift in the mood of the clearing: excitement and chaos giving way to preparation and order. Pomona could see her clearly: a woman in miniature, wearing an elaborate white gown dusted with an iridescent shimmer, and a tiara topped with snowflakes on her white hair.

She clapped her tiny hands twice, and music filled the clearing. Pomona watched, entranced. The fairies began to twirl and dance together, laughing, streams of snowflakes in their wake. Soon, it seemed there was a blizzard in the clearing, and Rolanda squeezed Pomona's hand. Pomona looked over at her, then down at their hands in surprise. She hadn't even realized they'd started holding hands. When she looked back up, Rolanda smiled, then pointed up.

Pomona looked, and saw that the shards of sky she could see through the forest ceiling were white with snow, and the snowflakes were beginning to dust them as they stood there. Unable to stop it, she smiled, overwhelmed at the beauty and - well, _magic_ of it all.

She looked back at the clearing, where the fairies were still dancing, faster, seeming to encourage the snow above to fall harder. They spun around each other without hesitation, a perfectly choreographed celebration.

In the midst of it all, the dancing and the jingling of bells, the fairy queen stood perfectly still, her hands by her sides, watching her subjects do what they were born to do, and her smile seemed to match Pomona's: utterly beyond her control, and totally delighted.

They could have stood there for a quarter-hour or an hour; time had lost meaning for Pomona. She sensed that she was cold and her feet were starting to ache, a little, but the dance of the fairies was too beautiful to step away from. Finally, the fairy queen clapped her hands again, three times, and the fairies slowed, finally falling to a stop around the perimeter as before.

The queen gestured them back, and the fairies began to fly back through the fairy circle, each vanishing as they passed the boundary of stone.

When the last one had flown through, the fairy queen turned to Pomona and Rolanda and dipped into an unmistakable curtsy. Then she vanished into the circle with the others, and there was nothing left but the silent snow above.

“Oh, Rolanda!” Pomona said, turning to the other witch. “That was wonderful - I didn’t know there _were_ fairies in the Forbidden Forest! I …” She trailed off, then laughed. “I don’t have the words for it.” A pause. Maybe it was the cold night, or the way the snowflakes caught in Rolanda’s hair, or maybe she was still dazzled by the memory of the snow fairies. “Can I show you? Instead?”

“I would love it if you did.” Rolanda smiled. Pomona took in a breath and, using the hand still in hers, pulled Rolanda to her. The other woman had to duck, a little, to meet her mouth. Then it was there, soft pressure, warmth. It was so good.

No. Better than good. Wonderful. Nothing had been right for _years_ and finally, this, maybe, could be.

They broke apart, their eyes meeting, and for a moment, all they could do was stare, and smile. Rolanda lifted a hand and brushed a snowflake from Pomona’s cheekbone.

“May I suggest we move this inside?” she asked. “I'm not quite young enough to properly enjoy your company on this hard of ground, when it's this cold outside.”

Pomona laughed. “Let's go. I'd prefer to be inside, too.”

Rolanda took her hand and, their steps still silenced by their Cushioning Charms, they left the forest.

 

Two weeks later, Christmas day, the castle was quiet. Most of the students had gone home for the holidays - and this year, chances were good they'd actually come back in the New Year. Since there wasn't any propriety to really keep up, and only a few Hufflepuffs who might have need to find her, Pomona hadn't hesitated to invite Rolanda to spend the break in her quarters. Rolanda had gladly accepted, showing up the first night of break with a weekend bag and her toothbrush.

(“Your office is one floor down,” Pomona pointed out.

Rolanda blinked those golden eyes at her. “You're presuming I'm going to be dressed enough to leave.”)

Pomona was waiting in the small living room area outside of her bedroom when Rolanda came out of the bedroom, wearing no more than what the Lord had given her.

“Happy Christmas, Pomona,” she said, bending to kiss the other woman.

Pomona was, for the moment, more than happy to touch, and kiss, and feel Rolanda's warmth near her. But she pulled back and patted the couch next to her.

“Happy Christmas, Rolanda,” she said softly. “I was thinking - I didn't get you anything.”

“I don't need anything,” Rolanda began, but Pomona pressed a hand to her mouth, gentle.

“You gave me so much,” Pomona continued. “Not just the nutcracker, or the necklace. You helped me find Christmas again, and …” She hesitated. Somehow it was so much easier to tell her plants how much she loved them. “I got _you_. I just wanted to thank you properly.”

Rolanda’s eyes softened, and she leaned in, sealing their mouths together. Pomona’s lips parted, and her tongue slipped out to meet Rolanda’s in a dance that, for its relative newness, still felt beautifully familiar. Pomona leaned in, her bare skin pressed against Rolanda’s, sending heat curling under her skin. Honestly, it was still incredible to her that someone like Rolanda - someone as striking and beautiful as her - would go for someone like Pomona.

Maybe it made sense. The woman in the sky and the one with her feet planted on the ground. She smiled into the kiss, and Rolanda pulled back a little.

“Knut for your thoughts.”

“Just thinking about how beautiful you are,” Pomona replied. “Lean back. Let me really admire you.”

“I certainly won’t stop you,” Rolanda said, and she made herself comfortable on the couch, spreading her arms along the back. Pomona kissed her again, then started along her neck, down to her clavicle, then mapping out the swell of Rolanda’s breasts and the soft indent of her stomach. Rolanda laughed, breathless, at the gentle touch against her skin, squirming a little under Pomona’s lips and tongue.

At the juncture of the other woman’s legs, Pomona took in a steadying breath, then hoisted one of Rolanda’s legs over her shoulder.

“Pomona.” Her voice was soft but delighted, clearly pleased at this turn of events. Pomona looked up at her, over the curve of stomach and breast and taut nipple, and smiled. Then, without giving herself another moment to hesitate, she bent to the task at hand … well, mouth.

At first, she was a little uncertain, moving slowly, learning what made Rolanda squirm and gssp in pleasure, and what made her twitch away. Although the two of them had barely left her bedroom since break began, learning Rolanda’s specific geography was still new for Pomona, but as all Hufflepuffs knew, hard work and practice always yielded the best results.

So, she practiced, growing more confident as Rolanda hooked a hand in her curls to keep her in one spot. Pomona obliged happily, glad to have such an opinionated partner.

Finally, she seemed to hit just the right spot, and Rolanda cried out to the heavens, her shoulders pressed hard to the back of the couch, her hips rocking helplessly under Pomona’s ministrations, hand tangled tightly in her lover’s flyaway curls. When she sagged back, her hand slowly losing its grip, Pomona sat back on her heels, feeling quite pleased and … perhaps even a little merry.

“Happy Christmas, Rolanda,” Pomona said.

Rolanda smiled, cheeks pinked with exertion, and reached down to brush her fingers over the curve of Pomona’s jaw.

“Happy Christmas, Pomona. Get up here.”

Pomona was only too glad to do so, curling up with Rolanda, their heat blending and blurring together.

Maybe things weren’t perfect. Maybe things wouldn’t be okay for a long time. The world was still grieving and healing, and it would take more than two people discovering each other to do that.

But it was a start, and it was Christmas, and for now, that was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first time writing this pairing, and while they're way out of my usual wheelhouse, it was still so much fun! OllieMaye, I hope you enjoy this sweet little trifle of a story, and have a merry Christmas!


End file.
